Velocity, A Managed Services Company that provides IT managed services through network management, voice and data connectivity, along with digital media displays and advertising networks, recently announced that the company will continue to allow its employees to work remotely as part of its continued employer of choice strategy, with the exception of essential workers who are part of repair and supply chain operations.
“As we continue to evolve our strategy around being an employer of choice, it was obvious that we could either fight against this post-covid remote work movement by bringing employees back in the office or embrace and seek to thrive in it. Remote work is now part of who we are, not something we do in response to the pandemic. We have an amazing group of talented people at Velocity. Why would we push them out the door to work somewhere else? We want to retain our current talent and provide them with flexibility, and we do that by letting them work from home,” said Mark Walker, President and COO of Velocity.
Velocity made this announcement to its employees just days before the recent article posted in The New York Times, stating that some companies are still trying to hang on to the normalcy of working in an office pre-pandemic. These organizations generally assert that returning to the office is critical to preserving organizational culture. Still, employees have expressed a desire to keep the flexibility offered by remote work because their lives and priorities have shifted.
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Remote work is and will continue to be a key element of Velocity’s employee value proposition. This continued direction will consist of changes to strategies the company has in place, from a short-term to a long-term strategy. “I want team members to understand this is not a new Covid position that we will revisit every few months. Covid may have launched this new way of thinking about work, but it is no longer the driver of our remote work strategy – it’s our team members,” added Walker.
“We will continue to adapt – finding creative ways to thrive in this new remote workforce era,” said Walker. Velocity plans to do this by continuing to invest in tools to increase the effectiveness of remote work, such as enhanced virtual training and onboarding, managing productivity, and new ways of working that include remote team and culture building. “This is not to say we would never be in the office. We will have company and team-building events on-site. We will still have a place for team members to come into the office if they choose as we have many employees who enjoy the in-person experience; we will also support this.”
The company will revamp its real estate portfolio in Toledo, Ohio, to embrace this combined remote and on-site workforce by consolidating the campus headquarters into its new 100,000-square-foot building near the airport at 11300 Crosswinds Drive. This will allow its on-site teams to be in the same building, truly fostering a One Team ethos.
At the start of the pandemic, Velocity had a small number of remote workers. As a young and growing company, its leadership team knew that it needed to make some cultural changes to continue growing. The surprise onset of Covid-19 accelerated this process, forcing Velocity to quickly revolutionize its culture and technology in ways that went beyond its original plans. In 2020, Velocity shifted 90 percent of its workforce to remote within a matter of weeks.
Over the past 17 years, Velocity has transformed from a regional telecommunications outfit to a full-scale managed service provider for Fortune 500 companies. Despite the challenges of the pandemic, Velocity has continued to broaden its service offerings to include industry-leading VoIP and data services, digital signage, and a full array of hospitality services.
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